TF: pain and regret
by supernova22
Summary: set between DOTM and AOE, things for override, who has come to earth, and the rest of the autobots have never been harder, and serious change is on the horizon. summary kinda sucks. read and enjoy, please comment/review. more to come soon.
1. Chapter 1

**Ok, so this is my story of what happens between DOTM and AOE. The autobots confirmed for the 4****th**** movie, not counting the dinobots, are optimus, bumblebee, hound, drift, crosshairs, and supposedly/hopefully ratchet. I believe override, based on her TF cybertron self, would do good in the movieverse and with the AoE group, plus a strong female bot could do well in the film, to be honest any female bot i would be happy with. plus the idea of her being a race car/racing enthusiast could kind of go with the fact that Jack Reynor's character is a race car driver. So, this is my story of her on earth with the autobots during the 4 year time gap between the films. Since she isn't it the film, im sure u canquess the eventuality of the story.**

**Also, I will be doing away with the other autobots who aren't confirmed to return in AoE, such as sideswipe, mirage, and the wreckers. This may contradict what actually eventually ends up happening in the movie, but whatever. Enjoy.**

A red and white blur was all that was seen through an abandoned back road. Even if anyone managed to see it, they would never know what it was.

It was override.

The female autobot loved racing and spent more time in her decked out race car mode than robot mode. After a few hours of high speed driving she pulled off and followed an abandoned path into the woods. Once she knew she was away from the road, she transform and stretched. She was an average size cybertronian, slightly taller than bumblebee. Her robot mode was slightly bulky due to her alt. mode, but still feminine in appearance. On her head she had a small crest with two thin fins on either side of it. Uncommon in many cybertronians, she actually had yellow face, almost gold in appearance. She stretched her limbs and let out a long sigh of relief.

"oooooh, that was good"

She soon transformed again and made her way back up to the main road.

"I sped all the way out her, now I get to speed all the way back" she thought happily

As she drove she started thinking about her past, how she had come here to earth.

Long ago, she had left cybertron at the beginning of the war with much of the rest of its civilian populace. Even back then she had a love of speed. In the time before the war she would occasionally join in on underground street races, if only for just a cheap thrill. When she left she was on the starship Ogygia. However, during its journey, its commander was killed in an engineering accident. Without leadership, panic began to sweep the starship. Knowing something had to be done; she stepped up and took command. This was met with much criticism but she managed to do a good enough job to earn their respect.

She eventually led the starship to a small barren desert-like planet. Outside of twisters and sand storms, it was a relatively safe place and she decided this is where the refugees would stay. To their surprise, they found remains of an ancient cybertronian star harvester there as well as another half completed one for some reason. They had never been activated and were possibly abandoned. Taking command again, she order the structures disassembled and used as materials to help build a settlement. She was always proud of that decision and it has always been one of her most memorable. And so the harvesters were stripped, the help of a construction bot named bulkhead helped a great deal. The Ogygia was also partially stripped, with its remains serving as a central command structure.

After a decent settlement was made, the topic of leadership was brought up again. While the majority of the population had rallied behind her, there were still some that questioned her as a suitable leader. In answer to this she announced a race, with the winner being named leader of this new colony, which had been dubbed Velocitron. There were many who desired to lead and took part in the grand race. She planned to put her all into it, but small part of her did secretly hope someone was faster than her. She still wasn't sure she was built for leadership. Despite this, she dominated the race. The only one that gave her a decent challenge was a snarky little red two-wheeler named Ransack. He was on her tale for most of the race and almost pulled ahead of her. Despite his efforts, she won the race and became the leader of Velocitron. She decided to except and embrace the position from that point on. For giving her a challenge during the race, she named ransack her second in command. This proved to be her first mistake as leader, as she soon learned that he was no more than a sly talking schemer, and that he and his buddy Crumblezone were little more than bullies.

That day had started something else, the people's love of racing. The bots of the colony were so entertained and enthralled with the great race that racing became the sole vice and occupation for them. Many roads, paths and race tracks were constructed around the whole planet. On Velocitron, outside of necessary labor and work, there wasn't a bot who wasn't a racer, working for a racer, or watching a race. While she was a well-respected leader and the best racer on the planet, things slowly got stale for her. She had no challenges. Then a god-send occurred. An autobot vessel landed on Velocitron. The ship had a three man crew; swordsman and former decepticon Drift, young commando Crosshairs, and Hound. Hound was an older bot and was known as one of the older generation; the old bots that were all friends and made up a lot of the autobot command. It was known to include sentinel prime, optimus prime, ironhide, ratchet, wheeljack, hound, kup, among others. He revealed to us that on earth, Optimus had killed magatron and much of the decepticon army. Hound and the others were heading there, and while the rest of Velocitron were happy, they were also content in their racing obsessed lives, but she needed more. She decided to go with them. Against her best judgment, she gave leadership to ransack. She, for the first time in so long, was only thinking about herself and what she wanted. If it weren't for that moment of weakness, she would have never left her people in the hands of that vile diminutive scrap heap. But she did. She bid farewell to her closest friends and left with the other autobots for earth.

It was almost 3 years ago when they arrived on earth and joined optimus in the aftermath of the decpticon invasion, and they learned a great many truths. That megatron and his lieutenants were indeed dead, as well as the shocking truth that sentinel prime was also dead and had betrayed them. Worst for her to hear was news of the loss of many dear friends like jazz, arcee, and ironhide in the battles on earth. Her and the other new arrivals soon adjusted to life on earth with optimus' team, hiding from the humans. She had no real love for the humans but did like how they had a similar love of speed. She took the vehicle disguise of a futuristic, by human standards, looking race car.

Now here she was, part of optimus primes autobots, who had faded from the open and hidden from the humans, with most of the remaining decpeticons in hiding too. Her only vises were driving and hanging with the other autobots. She got along fairly with most of them, save for the cat calling wreckers. The autobot she was the closest to was bumblebee. He was a bit younger than her but a kind bot and strong warrior none the less. He also had a similar love of driving, though not as fast as she was used to. For some reason had become accustomed to communicating in earthern audio clips, despite regaining his voice. Though when they were alone he would speak in his own voice. It was confident but smooth, giving off a feel of comfort. She imagined it was what optimus sounded like in his youth. They had become the best of friends, and sometimes she wondered if there was more to it.

She raced along the roads, alone with these and many more thoughts as she made her way back to autobot base, her new home.


	2. Chapter 2

Override plopped down on the transformer-sized sofa they had put in their bases wreck room. She flipped through the channels on the large screen they had on the wall. The autobots were fond of earth TV and movies, though couldn't find anything they wanted to watch. On the couch with her were bumblebee and sideswipe. Ratchet was sitting in a chair to the side, though he was more interested in fiddling with his tools. Behind them, crosshairs was leaning against the wall, humming, apparently content in his boredom. Hound was currently on surveillance duty and mirage was sparring with drift in the training room. As usual, optimus was alone in his quarters, doing only ratchet knows what.

Since the autobots had withdrawn from public view, they were much less active. To this end, their new base was primarily for their use, with very little human presence, unless it was important.

Override sighed, she had hoped that NASCAR would be on, but she couldn't find it. She finally settled on The Wizard of OZ, which nobody seemed to object to. It was the scene where the scarecrow is introduced, and she smiled. For some reason he kinda reminded her of Bee, who would sometimes act before thinking. It was hard to enjoy the movie though because all she could hear were the wreckers in the next room, who were arguing about something. She had been told that before she came to earth, the wreckers stayed with the autobots ship instead of at the base. She couldn't really remember what life without the trio was like but imagined that it was nice and quiet.

the buzzing of ratchets comm went off but he ignored it. it was most likely hound. ratchet was supposed to take over surveillance duty about two hours ago but decided to let hound wait. ratchet silently resented hound. ratchet was one of optimus' oldest freinds and has fought with him the whole time on earth, yet hound was made his second in command upon his arrival. ratchet understood that hound was more of a warrior than him, a lot like ironhide. But after, ironhides unfortunate demise, ratchet seemed to be optimus' new second in command, yet it was then given to hound when he came to earth. the issue was not as much of rathcet wanting the position as him just being insulted by being pushed aside.

Later, after the movie, override flipped onto the news. It was talking about an abandoned race track out past the city limits where teens would race their cars at night. Override's eyes suddenly flared brighter and a big grin formed.

"don't even think about it, you" came ratchet's voice

"oh come on ratch, this is a god send"

"you know optimus isn't fond of you going out and speeding around the state, let alone going out to an illegal race at night with a bunch of human teens"

"that's why im going now"

"what!"

"sorry ratchet, but I got too much pent up energy, and an abandoned race track is just too good an opportunity to pass up. I'll make it up to the big guy afterwards. Anyone else care to join?"

A few minutes later she was speeding down the highway. She had figured bumblebee and sideswipe would join her and she was right. They followed behind her, followed by crosshairs and the wreckers. She didn't like the wreckers coming but they were racers as much as she was. Ratchet said he would cover for them.

"I just called in a favor to NEST, they'll kill any cameras at the race track and listen for any authority responses, just be careful, all of you" his voice came over the comms

"thanks ratch"

"please be careful override, you go a lot faster than most bots I've seen. Who knows how the strain could affect your body"

"no need to worry ratchet, I was built for speed"

"yeah you were!" bumblebee added.

After about an hour they got there and wasted no time. Lap after lap they raced, laughing and joking the whole time. It had been quite some time since they were able to cut loose and have fun like this. Override even enjoyed the wreckers, who were blaring Wolves of the Sea and singing along with it like a bunch of drunken fools.

"this really was a good idea, override" bumblebee aid

"I know, this just feels so right"

"It would be nice to transform and race on foot but any humans could still wonder in"

"yeah well, wheels beat feet any day in my book"

"OVERRIDE!" a harsh voice called out

The autobots all stopped and turned to see two vehicle charge through the tunnel into the track. One was a red motorcycle and the other was a green GMC that was almost as large as a monster truck. They transformed and override recognized them immediately.

"ransack, crumplezone! What the hell are you doing here?"

"we came to pay you back, you sleazy traitor" ransack spat

"what?!"

The other autobots had transformed gathered near her, already scornful towards the new arrivals.

"We came here to get revenge on you for what you did to us. You slipped away with the autobots and left the rest of us to die!"

"what do you mean die, I left you in charge"

"then split just in time to save your own aft"

"I don't know what your…"

"you're gonna get yours, gear grinder" crumplezone cut her off

"yeah we didn't care what it took, we were gonna see to it that you got what was coming to ya, even if it meant working with the worst of the worst"

"Autobots! Multiple decepticon targets heading your way, we are en route, ETA 8 minutes" optimus' voice boomed over all their commlinks

"bee you get that" ratchets voice came next

"yeah, we got it. Autobots, prepare for battle!"

"what did you do?!" override flared at the duo, who quickly transformed and sped out of the track

"have fun, see you in the scrap heap" ransack shouted back

No sooner had they vanished than the far wall of the stadium exploded and a swarm of decepticons poured in. Most of the decepticons looked the same, a uniform design of purple and grey with masked, featureless faces. Before anyone could react the autobots were peppered with fire; then it was all out battle. Many of the decepticons fell, but they fought with just as much tenacity as ever. One, who was carrying a large cannon, took aim at bumblebee, charged the shot and fired. Override looked on in horror when suddenly sideswipe skated in out of nowhere and shoved bee aside, taking the full power of the shot. Sideswipe was thrown backwards but remained standing, for a moment. A large whole had been blown clear through his upper body and after a moment, he fell backwards to the ground. Bumblebee rushed to his side while override and crosshairs gunned down the decepticon shooter.

"sideswipe?" bee said softly

They all looked to bee, who slowly moved his head back and forth. Sideswipe was gone.

The autobots all froze in horror, a moment that the vile decepticons capitalized on. One sent a grenade flying, which landed at the feet of the wreckers, right between the three of them. In an explosion that rocked the whole stadium, the wreckers were scattered, literally. Topspin was killed instantly by the blast, his pieces decorated the track. Most of roadbusters head was vaporized and his body was sent flying backwards like a rag doll into the stands. Leadfoot lost on of his legs and his chest was torn apart but he was alive; alive enough to roll over and blow the head off of the con who had lopped the grenade.

"ya killed my buddies ya fuckin bastard!"

The stadium was suddenly filled with a thunderous horn as optimus came barreling into the stadium. He transformed flawlessly and launched himself into the fray, taking out multiple decepticons. He was followed by ratchet, hound, mirage and drift, who likewise joined the battle, plowing through the enemy. Ratchet used his saw to slice a cons head clear in half when he noticed the fallen autobots, instantly rushing to check on them.

"bumblebee, mirage, cover ratchet!" optimus shouted from the other side of the stadium

As bumblebee ran over to join ratchet and mirage, he was suddenly tackled by two cons. They held him down and cocked their weapons when they were suddenly tackled by override.

Ratchet realized quickly that sideswipe was dead, with a deeply saddened mirage looking over his shoulder.

"hey doc, im leakin lubricant over here!" leadfoot yelled.

Ratchet stood slowly and as he turned he put a comforting hand on mirages shoulder. He then sprinted across the battle field, guns blazing, towards his next patient. Mirage stood in silence over his friends body before a fire was ignited in his spark. With a furious and uncharacteristic battle cry he charged in to battle, flinging his arms about, his blades slashing cons left and right. Because of this, bee took off to give ratchet his cover. Override was about to join him when she took a few shots to the chest. They were not serious, but she was forced to drop down onto her knee.

In that moment she surveyed the battle. optimus was duking it out with a larger decepticon that was giving him a real fight. Hound was smashing cons effortlessly. Crosshairs and drift were back to back, one shooting with everything he had, the other slashing his swords in every direction. She could see bee, who was providing cover fire for ratchet, who was tending to leadfoot. She then turned and saw mirage, who fearlessly tackled 3 decepticons at once, which proved to be a mistake. The three overpowered him and piled on top of him. Override hoped to her feet and charged forward. She could see mirages legs kicking underneath them. She thought he was fighting back, until one of the cons held up his severed arm. She started firing madly with her blaster in their direction, blowing holes in the decpeticons backs. When she got to them the decepticons were slumped over and lifeless. She rolled them over took look at mirage; his left arm had indeed been ripped off and he had many gashes and punctures in his chest. He coughed furiously and energon poured from his body.

"oh primus, no. RATCHET!" she called and he looked over towards them

"go ratchet, I'll watch leadfoot" bee said

"are you sure?"

"get goin doc, they need ya more than I do!" the wrecker spat

As ratchet made his way across the field, the battle reached its end. Most of the decepticons were dead and the rest had fled. Optimus surveyed the area with a heavy heart.

"wooo, we won" crosshairs shouted

He saw drift shaking his head in disagreement and was suddenly slapped in in the back of the head by hound. He then turned to see all the carnage the battle had caused, as well as their casualties.

"there's no victory here" hound said soberly a he took out his cygar

"hound, please contact NEST and alert them of the situation, and ask them to send support" optimus said lowly

"aye aye prime"

"it's not good, he's too far gone, his spark is fading" ractchet looked up at override

Mirage reached out his hand and ratchet clasped it with both of his.

"well, this kinda sucks"

"save your breath mirge"

Optimus and the others all gathered around.

"thank you, all of you, it has been an honor to fight, for freedom, alongside you all. This is how I would want it anyway. Falling in the glory of battle rather than slowly rusting over the ages, no offense ratchet.

"none taken, my friend" ratchet chuckled softly

"Optimus prime, it has been a real honor"

"that it has"

"I never could see what you saw in humanity, but I am still proud to have protected them"

With that, mirages eyes began to flicker before finally going dark. Ratchet clasped his hand even tighter before finally loosening his grip, letting mirages hand fall onto his chest. The bodies of sideswipe, topspin and roadbuster were brought over and laid alongside his and optimus lead the autobots in a mournful solute to their comrades.

"go my friends, join with the allspark, and be at peace"

Override was bursting was sadness and regret as she looked at the lost friends.

"this is all my fault"

**more to come soon, next chapter hopefully done tomorrow**


	3. Chapter 3

Everything had gone so wrong.

The autobots all sat silently in the control room of their base as ratchet went from one to the other checking their wounds. They had lost four of their comrades in battle; sideswipe, topspin, roadbuster and mirage. And may soon lose another.

"Ratchet, how is leadfoot doing?" drift asked as he walked by him

Ratchet let out a long sigh

"not good, the battle really messed him up and the transport back to base seemed to worsen his condition. Im…not sure if he's going to make it"

The words hung heavy on everybody.

"hes the toughest of the wreckers, if anybody can make it through this, its him" bumblebee said trying to sound sure, but he knew he was fooling himself.

Optimus stood at the main terminal, going through the signals and activity before the battle, clearly trying to keep his mind occupied. He was taking the whole think very hard, obviously, but after the outburst he had afterwards.

After the battle, NEST had shown up to take control of the situation and clean up. Unfortunately national intelligence director Mearing was not far behind. She immediately started ripping into the autobots, but after their loss, optimus was having none of it. He slammed his foot down with enough force to crack the ground, effectively silencing the human. He did not understand why every human politician or in power became an asshole and he wasn't in the mood for it. In summery be basically told her to fuck off before leaving with the other autobots.

Ratchet made his way over to override, who was sitting against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest, a look of pure despair on her face.

"this was my fault" she kept repeating over and over in her head.

He crouched down beside her and slowly pulled her legs down so he could inspect the damage to her chest. As he did, her eyes remained glued on the hallway, for just down it, in one of the rooms, lay their fallen friends.

"damage is minimal…"

He looked up and saw her expression

"at least physically"

He rested his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him with weary eyes. That look, he knew it. It suddenly dawned on him what was wrong with her.

"this was your first real battle wasn't it?"

She nodded

"you were never a soldier, never knew the harshness of war. And, probably never lost friends either, especially see them die before your eyes" optimus suddenly turned to her

"im afraid that is the reality of war" ratchet added

"a pointless war" override spoke up

"it isn't pointless" optimus said back

"it most certainly is! What is it all for now, why did the war start, the autobots fight? To save cybertron from tyranny. Now look what it is. Cybertron is gone, our race is most likely nearing the brink of extinction, and you don't care, you would rather play big brother to these little meat bags. You only care about them now, who don't even like us.

"override" bumblebee and ratchet tried to calm her

"no, this needs to be said. I do believe in freedom and peace, I do. But how many of our kind, friends, have you sacrificed as shields for their kind. They chose to fight for their home, not them. And now our home is gone, you chose to sacrifice it for them as well. You chose earth over cybertron, over our home!"

Optimus was taken aback; he had never had the clearance to see it like that. Is that really what he had done. Was that what the others thought. Hound wanted to object to what she was saying but held his tongue. She was free to express how he felt, plus there was a sting of truth to what she said.

"I…I" was all optimus could say

"there's nothing you can do or say optimus, it's done. You made the decision already, and THAT is the outcome, the eventuality of that choice" she said as she pointed down the fall to where the dead autobots lay.

"I came here because I wanted more out of life; I didn't want to die fighting for someone else's world, fighting their battles"

Optimus was dumbfounded; he, nor any of the others, could say anything. Override then stormed out of the room in a huff. The others sat in silence before optimus turned and slowly walked out down another hallway from the room. Bumblebee and ratchet looked at each other and nodded. They both turned and went off, ratchet after optimus and bee after override. The other three were left to stew in the tension that still hung in the air.

Bee sprinted through the corridors of the base, trying to find where override had gone. He suddenly came to a corner when he saw her arm from around it. He slowed down and walked around carefully until he was in front of her. She looked up at him, energon tearing up in her optics.

"override, I know you're feeling bad, we all are, but you didnt have to…"

He was suddenly cut off by her falling against him. She had no strength anymore, inner or outer. She was a complete wreck. She looked up at him.

"it's not opimus' fault, its mine. it was my fault" she said, shaky and full of despair

"no, not its not"

"yes it is, I just had to race, and bring you all with me. It was my fault. I got them all into it. got them killed."

He tried to hold her in a standing position, as most of her weight was on him at this point. She suddenly looked up at him, they were staring into each other's eyes, their faces were inches apart.

"bee" she whispered

"yeah"he whispered back as she closed the distance between them

Suddenly her golden lips were pressed against his vocal speaker, the heat from each warming the other. She finally broke the kiss, with each looking at the other with a mix of content and confusion. She leaned her head forward and rested it on his shoulder.

"overrode"

"…"

"it wasn't your fault, it was those two glitch heads that showed up and led them to us"

Overrides eyes suddenly flared open. She had completely forgot about ransack and crumplezone until that moment. Them suddenly showing up on earth, looking for her, talking about revenge, and leading the decepticons to them. It was their fault.

"bee, I think…I just need a drive"

"are you sure?"

"yeah, you know me, clears my head, relaxes me"

"override" he almost whispered

She reached out and put her hand on his cheek. He dimmed his optics and leaned into it, savoring the contact.

"it's all right bee, it's all gonna be alright"

He felt her hand leave his cheek and when he finally opened his eyes again, she had already gone.

"you can take the bot out of the race, but you can't take the race out of the bot" he smiled inwardly

He started walking down the hall, thinking about those two bots when he froze in horror. He suddenly realized what he had said, where she was going, what she was doing. He spun around to look, knowing that she was long gone.

"we have to find her, have to stop her. I gotta find optimus!"

He started sprinting back towards the control room.

"oh primus, what dark road have I sent her racing down. Please don't let it be too late"

**things are getting heated, all soon to come to a head, stay tuned to find out :)**


End file.
